Think again. GE bought a manufacturer who was producing engine parts that could not be machined with 3D printing. For production, they just run the printers in parallel.
I will get it to you. Short answer, yes but not here. A friend and I are researching advanced new manufacturing processes. 3D printing with metals and forming composites is the current hot thing. It is actually possible to make something with different alloys in different places, and or that is a composite material, mix of metal, plastic, etc...
Casting. Yes I love it. We were making things out of cast aluminium in school, age 15, it was a lot more fun than watching a 3D printer for hours and hours and ...I can't imagine there is a school in the world that would allow kids to do such a dangerous thing now a days.
I think the key here is "mass production". 3D printing is more about being able to make those one off custom items or prototypes.
Well, I did aluminum castings in molds made from sand in Junior High School. And in university I did bronze casting via lost wax process.
A 3D printer could be useful to make wax parts for lost wax casting.
One of the more exotic processes of making items that require exotic alloys is to use a combination of powders of different metals and to construct them blended together with a resin, and then to use an electric induction furnace to actually fuse the alloy. I talked to a guy that was doing this somewhere near Silicon Valley, but I never could get a good answer on what parts he was actually making. My impression was it was hush hush military stuff.
A high energy induction furnace for 3D parts is not exactly something for DIY home use.
3D printing and CNC milling for the most part ignore that mysterious world of metallurgy. How did they ever make a Damascus sword? Nobody knows, if is forgotten.. lost in time.
And then there is the wonderful world of laminating layers of highly corrosion resistant nickel alloys onto a layer of high strength carbon steel. That just takes an old quarry, a big flat table made from a very thick slab of steel, and a huge array of timed charges of plastic explosives to fuse the two materials together. It is cheaper and stronger than to make petro-chemical process tanks that require strength under high pressure and high heat as the non-corrosive alloys are not as strong as the carbon steel. Of course, it also requires some very special welding techniques to complete the pressure vessels.
That's great. By the time I got into technical school they presented the ali sand casting technique but none of us students were allowed near it. That's far to dangerous. Oh, yeah, back in school my thing was not "lost wax" but "lost polystyrene". very quick to cut the shape you want and away you go.
For sure you cannot print a Samurai sword. Those guys figured out how to fold and bash many layers of steel and then heat treat it in just the right way to make the sharp edge hard and sharp but the main bulk flexible.
Good grief yes. I forgot the forge. I was never much into the pounding thing. It's kind of hard work. Give me the lathes and mills any day. Just recently I have been considering splashing out on a micro-lathe so that I can relive my former glory in miniature.
Yes, we had a lathe, but no mill. Lots of sheet metal and welding gear too. Both the wood and metal shops were fairly well equipped. In the other building, we also had an auto shop with two lifts, test and analysis gear, etc... the whole works. Kids were in there doing full rebuilds, engine swaps, and all manner of killer automotive fun activities.
(The kid who put a V8 in his Vega got a physics lesson when a quick romp bent the frame, causing it to always ride on only three tires!)
And people are talking about soldering irons being off limits? The crafts class had those, known as "wood burners" with all the fancy tips, in use every day, boys and girls all over those things with few worries.
Again, that's high school. Most of us came out with a great set of life skills. Today, they come out with a lot of facts and things they memorized. And I'm not picking on anybody. It's just that not everybody will go to college, and for those that don't, getting a practical, useful education really matters.
My junior high school had a print shop, a metal shop, and a wood shop. I took the print shop and the metal shop.
In metal shop we also did some styrofoam aluminum casting, I learned to solder with a gas furnace and on sheet metal, and operated a machine lathe. We did have a milling machine that the instructor had running all day on reducing a big block of metal to nothing.
Print shop was all about typesetting from big trays of type, and carving insets from wood blocks.
My first impression of junior high school was that it was so similar to a penitentiary, including the shops, yard time, and hall guards. I still recall it that way.
But it certainly was fun to learn to actually do some occupationally useful things. I missed out on mechanical drawing class and would have loved to have taken it.
Comments
Do you have a link to that story?
I would love to have a 3D printer that can make parts from titanium or steel or even aluminium.
Yeah, me too.
Well, I did aluminum castings in molds made from sand in Junior High School. And in university I did bronze casting via lost wax process.
A 3D printer could be useful to make wax parts for lost wax casting.
One of the more exotic processes of making items that require exotic alloys is to use a combination of powders of different metals and to construct them blended together with a resin, and then to use an electric induction furnace to actually fuse the alloy. I talked to a guy that was doing this somewhere near Silicon Valley, but I never could get a good answer on what parts he was actually making. My impression was it was hush hush military stuff.
A high energy induction furnace for 3D parts is not exactly something for DIY home use.
3D printing and CNC milling for the most part ignore that mysterious world of metallurgy. How did they ever make a Damascus sword? Nobody knows, if is forgotten.. lost in time.
And then there is the wonderful world of laminating layers of highly corrosion resistant nickel alloys onto a layer of high strength carbon steel. That just takes an old quarry, a big flat table made from a very thick slab of steel, and a huge array of timed charges of plastic explosives to fuse the two materials together. It is cheaper and stronger than to make petro-chemical process tanks that require strength under high pressure and high heat as the non-corrosive alloys are not as strong as the carbon steel. Of course, it also requires some very special welding techniques to complete the pressure vessels.
That's great. By the time I got into technical school they presented the ali sand casting technique but none of us students were allowed near it. That's far to dangerous. Oh, yeah, back in school my thing was not "lost wax" but "lost polystyrene". very quick to cut the shape you want and away you go.
For sure you cannot print a Samurai sword. Those guys figured out how to fold and bash many layers of steel and then heat treat it in just the right way to make the sharp edge hard and sharp but the main bulk flexible.
(The kid who put a V8 in his Vega got a physics lesson when a quick romp bent the frame, causing it to always ride on only three tires!)
And people are talking about soldering irons being off limits? The crafts class had those, known as "wood burners" with all the fancy tips, in use every day, boys and girls all over those things with few worries.
Again, that's high school. Most of us came out with a great set of life skills. Today, they come out with a lot of facts and things they memorized. And I'm not picking on anybody. It's just that not everybody will go to college, and for those that don't, getting a practical, useful education really matters.
In metal shop we also did some styrofoam aluminum casting, I learned to solder with a gas furnace and on sheet metal, and operated a machine lathe. We did have a milling machine that the instructor had running all day on reducing a big block of metal to nothing.
Print shop was all about typesetting from big trays of type, and carving insets from wood blocks.
My first impression of junior high school was that it was so similar to a penitentiary, including the shops, yard time, and hall guards. I still recall it that way.
But it certainly was fun to learn to actually do some occupationally useful things. I missed out on mechanical drawing class and would have loved to have taken it.